Life and the Pursuit of Airplane Tickets

8 years ago

10 March 2011

The unclosed blackout shades let the morning light stream in through my hotel room window twenty stories up in downtown Chicago. I am sleeping in my third different location in the past four nights. And right now I could probably not tell you what I ate for breakfast yesterday. That is if I even ate. I am a person that always enjoys being on the go, the further and more outlandish the adventure, the larger my pupils grow with excitement. Traveling is my drug.

When I decided to create the Andrew Travel Rule over three years ago I had never imagined the impact on my life. The Rule that states that I must travel somewhere every month of the year from then on forward. This has forced me to visit and see places I would have never imagined. I have watched fog dissipate over the NorCal coast after driving the 101 through the night. I have watched the stars in the solitude of a abandoned state park outside of Death Valley, only to be awoken at 3am when the LAX airport landing route was shifted over my campsite. I have flown halfway across the world to visit amazing people in the United Kingdom, sleep on their floor and make plans to move there, only to have everything change because of a political election.

Nonetheless, even after my wildest adventures, getting on a plane an hour before midnight to head to a conference for just a week still gets my blood flowing. I always hear that I should save my money or spent on physical objects instead of weekend long trips to Mexico. However, as I sit here in my hotel room, staring out over a city that was hundreds of miles away only a few hours ago. I think. I choose to live.